The Slingbox is popular with many TiVo users. The TiVo does time-shifting, and the Slingbox does place-shifting, making for a good combo. It looks like the second generation of Slingbox products is hitting the streets. Dave Zatz, at ZatzNotFunny, reported finding one of them at his local Best Buy. They’re diversifying their product line, and there will be three different boxes now – the Slingbox A/V, Tuner, and Pro. The AV is similar to the first generation product, controlling an external source – like a TiVo. The Tuner has an internal analog cable tuner. The Pro can control up to 4 devices, and appears to include HD input. The new packaging also indicates that, in addition to Windows (including Windows Mobile) and MacOS support, Symbian support is on the way. (Now if they’d only support PalmOS I might buy one to use with my Treo.)
PVRWire also has a report. And Engadget has pictures of the packaging, which includes a feature matrix:
| Feature | Pro | Tuner | AV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Widescreen support (16:9) | X | X | X |
| High quality programmable video compression | X | X | X |
| Watch/control from any PC/Mac/laptop | X | X | X |
| Watch/control TV from select mobile phones | X | X | X |
| TV/analog cable tuner | X | X | - |
| Pass-through connections for seamless integration into current A/V configurations | X | X | - |
| Connects to set-top box (digital cable, satellite, DVR) | X | - | X |
| Remote control of A/V devices | X | - | X |
| Connect HD component devices | X | - | - |
| Connect & control up to 4 A/V sources | X | - | - |
With the Pro supporting HD input, it’d be an interesting companion to the Series3.
